Setting the Conditions for Speculation
China’s economy will soon overtake that of the U.S. as the world’s largest. More
importantly, the U.S. strategic elite clearly do not believe that China’s global interests align with U.S. interests. This perception makes China the greatest threat to American strategy objectives. The U.S. defense and diplomatic missions currently respond to the growing Chinese threat with aggressive rhetoric and system shocking investments pursuant to pre-eminent technologies. While such a reaction is likely necessary to rejuvenate strategic capabilities, truncating American strategy at technological pursuits will find America unprepared for the future. Below the
threshold of conflict, strategic systems provide deterrence and shape much of the security dynamic in great power competition. The U.S. requires a revitalization of the complex and ubiquitous nuclear and strategic policy formulation from the Cold War.
The time is ripe for the United States to redevelop strategy and begin preparing for the growing Chinese defense paradigm. In force posture and capability, the U.S. still has strategic pre-eminence and likely will for the next decade. Certainly, Chinese development programs in strategic systems, policy statements, and pursuits in enabling domains all suggest that this window of superiority will close quickly. The imperative for immediate planning preparation falls to the U.S. defense and diplomatic community.
Moreover, the economic disposition of China will soon seat it as the world’s largest economy. However, China faces some significant structural and demographic challenges to its economy before it can begin functioning as an efficient high-income economy. These challenges pull much of the Chinse political focus toward inward development strategies. This period of
internal reform further shifts focus from what could be U.S. strategic preparation to handle the growing interests of China. However, U.S. ability to maintain pre-eminence predicates upon its ability for continued U.S. economic growth.
The call for in depth nuclear policy led to an assessment of the last great period of strategic weapons system competition. The tradition of high-level strategic thought and scenario- based analysis and preparation during the Cold War proved to be of great utility to the U.S. great power strategy of the time. This analysis also seems that it would have some applicability to the current great power competition between the U.S. and China. Some weaknesses of Cold War strategy included the mirror imaging of American cultural analysis upon our adversaries. This discussion seeks to overcome the short falls of Cold War strategic analysis by advocating for an assessment of Chinese strategic culture to go part in parcel with nuclear posture analysis. The analysis of Chinese culture provides a roadmap that we will apply to recommended U.S. actions and preparations for the future. U.S. policy makers should take elements from this analysis and conduct a much broader analysis of their own to ensure that U.S. investment and actions obtain the greatest degree of efficacy.
Below, I will project a scenario-driven analysis for U.S. strategy vis a vis China. To be clear, this is simply a speculative exercise, designed to show the utility of such a model. The U.S. will require much more in-depth and intelligence-informed modeling. Nonetheless, the modeling will combine cultural analysis with a logical progression of economies and force posture to develop policy recommendations for the United States. This exercise will suggest the level of preparation and the type of thought the immediate strategic situation requires. Prior to this exercise, I will discuss scenario-driven analysis revolving around periods of development, and why they provide unique utility in this instance.
Why Periods
The fourth section engaged the utility of periods specifically as part of the broader strategic outlook of the Cold War. This is not the only method of modeling that could prove useful to U.S. strategizing. However, it has merits that make it effective and the targeted recommendation for this paper. Having a time-bound phased approach for scaling and tailoring force posture can serve as a predictive modeling tool. More importantly, it can serve as an intellectual tool to posit possible developments and begin to plan for potential scenarios. The exercise is not necessarily about getting every facet of the future correct. Having an architecture to apply actual developments against allows for an educated interpretation of events, and the quick pivoting of programs, as necessary. For instance, perhaps we predict the Chinese will have widely deployed batteries of hypersonic glide vehicles in three regions in five years. From this assessment, the U.S. plans for rudimentary defenses in place in three years, their own offensive hypersonic system in six, and pluses up regional security in the projected areas of deployment. The Chinese may have the system in place in three years, in different locations than posited. Moreover, the maneuverability of the glide vehicles may render some of the defenses useless. However, adjusted regionally based deterrence strategies through conventional and nuclear forces would still be applicable with minor adjustments. The defense systems would provide a platform upon which to build greater and more applicable capability. The timeline may have been incorrect, but forecasting future actions shortens the potential capability gap. Simply developing hypersonic weapons of our own without the broader architecture provided by time- bound in depth modeling would likely find the U.S. far more unprepared.
The memorandum Mr. Brzezinski drafted for President Carter is evidence of this phenomena. The memo provides an explanation of various iterations of enemy driven analysis
driving phases of force posture. The document shows an understanding that different phases of relative capability necessitate different levels of response.156 As relative capabilities began to
change so did the strategy. The U.S. forces continued to deter the Soviet forces. The grappling with the particulars of force development allowed the U.S. to notice small but significant inaccuracies in our predictions quickly, and adjust as necessary. As nuclear parity approached, the U.S. believed the Soviets would stop their buildup at near U.S. force levels. When they did not and when they introduced new qualitative capabilities, the previous doctrine lost much of its relevance. To revise our doctrine then became a critical although unpopular task in the face of the continuing Soviet buildup during the 1970s. Brzezinski dictates to the President “You have accomplished this through a number of directives which put much more emphasis on objective capabilities to reinforce the psychological and subjective aspects of deterrence.”157 A series of
calculated steps and analysis prepared the way for pivoting the nuclear force. The milieu set by living within the mindset of thorough preparation made the finer components of advanced policy and technology easily conveyable to the highest levels of leadership to attain appropriate policy responses. How much more prepared will the U.S. be for the Chinese threat with the return of sophisticated nuclear culture? Moreover, applying Chinese cultural assessments to strategy projections will help prevent the U.S. force deficiencies that arose in the 1970s from assuming that the Soviets would only pursue an exact mirror image of our forces. Hopefully, the
reassertion of strategic modeling will allow for the return of strategic policy proficiency and the corresponding flexible preparedness of the past.
A passive approach to the rising Chinese strategic threat will likely prove insufficient, “What China does with its military and nuclear power in the future will be determined without
156. Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Carter Transformation. 157. Ibid.
the influence of countervailing institutions … the emerging cool war with China deserves the utmost attention in this respect.”158 Maintaining the relative cultural taboo within the U.S. of
crisis mitigation and diminishing the reliance on strategic forces will not prepare the U.S. for the next great power competition. The normative forces of the international community will not affect the pursuit of Chinese goals. Pursuant to reaching their Centenary goals, China is investing in RCEPs, the BRI, BRICS bank, and other such endeavors. The growth of China’s strategic capabilities require a proactive U.S. policy response. Modeling Chinese specific interests, developments, and decision dynamics will provide the requisite kind of proactivity.
China is pursuing a hedging strategy that aims at minimizing strategic risks, increasing freedom of action, diversifying strategic options, and shaping U.S. preferences and choices.159
Chinese policy is extremely proactive regarding diminishing the interests of its greatest competitor. They are attempting to increase their influence in international institutions, create their own institutions, and develop a nuclear triad while designing unconventional weapon systems. Dong Wang suggests above all China recognizes the imperative for a comprehensive strategy in great power competition. China is assessing U.S. strategic culture, policy, and capabilities to achieve their regional objectives across the next three decades (2049 is the target of their second Centenary goal). The U.S. cannot afford a passive approach to strategic risks and coercion when their primary competitor actively partakes in this type of analysis.
If the U.S. enters a nuclear contest with the Chinese, devoid of complex strategy and preparation, they will be out-maneuvered. Further passivity or even appeasement in East Asia in the face of Chinese complex strategy will only diminish the role of the U.S. A combative
approach that refuses any reasonable concessions or reduction of resources in one area so that the
158. Thérèse Delpech, Nuclear Deterrence, 162-163.
U.S. might flex them to a better course of action, is untenable. This practice will lead to war when China crosses one of a dozen “red-lines”. Or, this practice will cause the U.S. to spend itself into bankruptcy as it attempts to out-produce and out-design the Chinese in every facet of their strategic arsenal. War is probable with China not because of reductionist great power transition theories. War is likely because we are careening down more broad academically viable paths to war. This is due to the self-fulfilling momentum of realism.160 The U.S. and China are
sovereign states that do not trust each other. They are competing for power and security
regionally and globally. At the moment, the rhetoric of U.S. political leaders makes all Chinese actions a transgression against our national security and a call to arms. Many of our regional actions fail to take into account the way China will perceive them, and often seem more inflammatory than necessary.
China attaining all of its historic claims on regional hegemony ignores the status quo of U.S. and Western regional interests. The U.S. desire to retain the status quo of the last 30 years of absolute pre-eminence and as the primary arbiter of regional matters is equally unrealistic. The status quo is approaching a catastrophic war. The strategic modeling attempted below could both help to relieve the political tension between the U.S. and China while simultaneously preparing the U.S. once again for the potential of great power conflict.
160. John A. Vasquez, “Whether and How Global Leadership Transitions Will Result in War: Some Long-Term Predictions from the Steps-to-War Explanation,” Systemic Transitions, 2009, pp. 131-160,
Addressing Alternate Viewpoints
This paper’s assertion does not exist within a bi-polar world, but a multi-polar international order. Discussing the dynamic of strategic weapon systems amongst only two nations may be a narrow perspective to take.
This is true in the first place among the major powers, particularly the United States, Russia, and China, since one cannot exclude the possibility of a conflict involving any two or all three of them. Managing a triangular nuclear situation would be far more difficult than stabilizing a bipolar one. What, for example, would be the nature of any delicate balance of terror” among three parties?161
Discussing the strategic dynamic in Asia and certainly should include Russia, and easily could include India – the second largest nation with one of the fastest growing economies in Asia. Japan, should it feel particular under threat from China could increase its defense spending from somewhere around 2% to 10%. This Japanese war state would certainly complicate matters for the Chinese and change regional dynamics. A complete analytical framework requires further research along these lines, particularly how other nations will alter the nuclear relationship between China and the U.S. This extensive vein of analysis is far beyond the scope of this paper and perhaps any single work. Despite the added complexities, the limiting of this conversation to China and the U.S. does not diminish its relevance. Russia is not going to surpass or even come close to the United States in economic output any time soon. Their lack of global economic leadership will likely leave them as a critical regional actor, and a global strategic agitator, but not as a global rival of the United States on the scale of the Soviet Union, or of China, presently. Japan in most scenarios will fall within U.S. policy and strategy. To a lesser degree, India will likely align with the U.S. more closely than China. Even so, India’s economic growth remains uncertain, and domestic and regional ethnic tensions abound. Taken together these dynamics
leave India external to this somewhat bi-lateral conversation regarding shrinking U.S. strategic interests. However, the United States would do well to keep India close, as a regional
counterweight to China politically and hopefully economically.
For two primary reasons, the exclusion of these and other states does not diminish the relevance of our conversation. First, the two largest militaries, economies, and soon to be
strategic forces belong to the United States and China. They are the two most powerful countries in the world and within the new great power completion. Neither is likely to quickly lose
international position based on domestic issues. Second, the inclusion of these actors and how they will enhance or harm U.S. security considerations, should and likely will be part of the strategizing posited here. They just remain largely within the political poles of the China and U.S. rivalry.
Strategic Periods from a U.S. Perspective
Below is a description of three sample periods projecting U.S. and China strategic interaction. Surely further analysis could lengthen, shorten, or even combine some of this assessment. However, I stopped at the implications of the third due to the increasing speculative nature of each section and further assessment likely requiring classified material to make viable assertions. The analysis covers characteristics with a few caveats provided; economic,
diplomatic, and research and engineering implications, and supposed Chinese actions melded with an interjection of the conclusions from the assessment of Chinese strategic culture.